Lee Daniels' The Butler

2013

Biography / Drama

Synopsis

As Cecil Gaines serves eight presidents during his tenure as a butler at the White House, the civil rights movement, Vietnam, and other major events affect this man's life, family, and American society.

Cecil Gaines was a sharecropper's son who grew up in the 1920s as a domestic servant for the white family who casually destroyed his. Eventually striking out on his own, Cecil becomes a hotel valet of such efficiency and discreteness in the 1950s that he becomes a butler in the White House itself. There, Cecil would serve numerous US Presidents over the decades as a passive witness of history with the American Civil Rights Movement gaining momentum even as his family has troubles of its own. As his wife, Gloria, struggles with her addictions and his defiant eldest son, Louis, strives for a just world, Cecil must decide whether he should take action in his own way.

Tech specs

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by marfrie569 / 10

highest accolades

I'll start by stating that I'm a 62 year old white male. I did not grow up in the South - but I did live for a year in Louisiana in the early 70's. I lived through every news event that was portrayed in the movie - that is, I saw and read about them in the actual news when these things happened. Many posters on the boards say that the movie is inaccurate. Then they go on to say things like: His name was changed, he didn't have 2 sons, he didn't look anything like Forest Whitaker, Nixon was miscast, etc. True, the details of The Butler's family life have been dramatized. That is called movie making. The movie was historically accurate in every important way. I don't say that every single detail was true, nor am I saying the portrayal of these historical events was 100% exactly as portrayed. But it is far more accurate (and important) than your average popcorn POS that pervades the theaters these days. I want to state that I have rarely, if ever, been as emotionally affected by any movie. It is brilliant, provocative, artistic, and has a social purpose. Like it or not, persons of African descent have been victimized, downtrodden, brutalized, persecuted, tortured, lynched, raped, and murdered - and only because of their skin color. HOORAY to Lee Daniels for making this movie! Hooray to Forest for being a sensitive, intelligent, highly gifted actor. Hooray to Oprah, whose performance is beyond stellar. Hooray to anyone involved with this movie. Not to say that ALL movies have to take you to the places that this movie does. I guess there is a place for Pacific Rim and Wolverine. So if you think that movies have no business delving into our racist and brutal history, then see one of those movies. But to say that this movie is irrelevant or inaccurate - well, as I said I lived through it all. It is not. What it is, is an exceptional, mature movie for those that want a little more than monsters (the fictional kind). My wife and I went through a whole packet of tissues - we were blubbering like fools. BRAVO!!!!! 9 (rather than 10) stars only because the 10 star reviews are often discounted as over- the-top hero worship. But if Ironman, The Avengers, etc are 10 stars (and I liked those), this movie rates 100 stars - because it is 10X better, more important, more relevant, and more thought provoking.

Reviewed by duraflex1 / 10

Just another over-hyped, oprahization of American history

It's always about race with anything Oprah touches and this grossly over-hyped movie is just another example.

One need only see the trailers, watch the clips on the entertainment shows or read user (not critics') reviews to get a hint of what you're in for if you choose to waste your money in a theater watching this tripe.

The film is very loosely based on a real life butler - Eugene Allen (1919-2010))- who had worked in the White House for 34 years from Truman in 1952 to Reagan in 1986.

If you want to know the real story of the real butler, read Wil Haygood's book OR do some research on the internet instead of lining Orca's over-sized pockets by subsidizing yet another fictionalized rewrite of history.

Here are 3 short examples:

ONE - In the movie, Oprah (as the butler's wife) brags that the White House called her husband to come work there. NOT SO. In reality, the real life butler got his entry level job by hearing that they were looking to routinely hire pantry workers at the White House.

TWO - In the film version, the butler's son serves in Vietnam and gets killed there. NEVER HAPPENED. Although the real life butler's son did serve in Vietnam, he is alive and well today. No matter to the makers of this film.

THREE - The real life butler never had a second son at all, let alone one who was a Black Panther as depicted in the film.

Like the liberal media, an agenda is in play here and this racially pandering movie is just another 2 hours of the oprahization of America - the essence of which is: black man good, whitey bad.

Waste of time, waste of money. Read the book if you care at all.

Reviewed by nancy454 / 10

Title Is Misleading

I was hoping to see a movie about the butler and his experiences in The White House. I'm sure he had a lot of interesting stories to tell and a lot of very interesting experiences in his many years in The White House. Yes, the movie was about a butler to some degree, but it was more about the civil rights movement and the evil white man. I would love to know more about the butler. I would love to have seen his experiences with the presidents the movie skipped over. I think in real life he must have been more interesting than he was portrayed. I also did not like the liberties the movie took with the real butler's life. He spoke of no horrible event on the cotton fields as a child. He had one son, not two. His son, who is still alive, was not a militant. His wife did not have a drinking problem, nor did she have an affair. Why add unnecessary drama? This movie will win awards because of its self righteousness, but not because it's that deserving.